June 28, 2012

Obama and Health Care

"For Barack Obama... the Supreme Court’s health care ruling is not just political vindication. It is a personal reprieve, leaving intact his hopes of joining the ranks of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson and Ronald Reagan as presidents who fundamentally altered the course of the country....", Decision Preserves Obama's Play For A Historic Presidency, New York Times, June 28, 2012

Let's not get carried away. Obama still needs to get reelected and a large majority of Americans are against the the health care plan, he is in for a tough fight against Romney and he has gotten off course in his quest for change.

He has the Republicans to share the blame for not having a plan to control our debt.

He talks about being a President for the average American and yet during his first three years he did nothing to fight against the Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court which allowed the wealthy to buy elections. Instead, he went to Wall Street to have $40,000 per plate dinners with the CEO's.
Further, he has still not demanded retribution from the banks, Wall Street, rating agencies and the mortgage industry for the harm they caused our economy with the sub prime housing fiasco. The only change he brought about was his ability to get a larger portion of their money compared to prior democrats. He had good reason for delaying going after them in 2009 because it would have worsened the near depression. He no longer has that excuse. In fact, if he brought about a transfer of wealth from the culprits to the victims, innocent homeowners, it would bring about a low cost means of further stimulating the economy.

Why is he not pushing for implementation of the Volcker Rule to break up banks that are too big to fail? Clearly the recent announcement concerning the $9-billion trading losses by JP Morgan demonstrates the only way to assure the country that the failure of a financial institution cannot bring down the economy of the entire country is to not allow them to get too big. The answer must be that he wants a portion of their campaign contributions.

This was published in Today's Commercial Appeal newspaper out of Memphis 6/30/2012

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that the controversial individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act is constitutional, it's worth recalling where the idea came from. Republicans had been discussing the idea for years when the conservative Heritage Foundation made the mandate part of its health care plan in 1990. When the Clinton administration proposed its health insurance reform program, the Republicans opposed it. Their chief counterproposal, authored by Sen. John Chafee of Rhode Island, included an individual mandate. It was Republican policy.

When Mitt Romney was Massachusetts governor, the health insurance reform program he signed into law included an individual mandate. As he described it on the day he signed the bill, it was a matter of principle. In his own words, "It's a Republican way of reforming the market. Because, let me tell you, having 30 million people in this country without health insurance and having those people show up when they get sick, and expect someone else to pay, that's a Democratic approach. That's the wrong way. The Republican approach is to say, 'You know what? Everybody should have insurance. They should pay what they can afford to pay. If they need help, we will be there to help them, but no more free ride.'"

To Gov. Romney, the individual mandate was an important principle. He was wholeheartedly for it. So why is he against it now? Because it's part of President Barack Obama's plan. It's still a matter of principle. The principle now is to say "no."